Tonight Aidan was pretty tired after a hard day being a toddler.  Aside: today was also a pretty successful day on the toilet training front.  Fingers crossed.

Anyway, back to tonight.  Going to bed, he wanted a book to be read to him.  However, we’d already been through the pre-bedtime negotiations and we’d settled on watching a Peep.  After Peep, it was off to bed and he managed to grab a book and tried to keep it with him in the bed.  Retrieving the book sent the toddler into hysterics.

After a little bit of intervention, the boy asked for a Kleenex.  But he didn’t want a Kleenex from the box in his bedroom, oh no.  He wanted one from upstairs.  In the face of this clear delaying tactic, the request was denied.  Hysterics continued.  And continued.

Off and on for another 15 minutes.

So, I paused the news (oh how I love our PVR) and went downstairs, Kleenex in hand.  I went in, handed it to him, and he said “That was very nice, thank-you.”  He then put his head on the pillow and said “Good night!”  And I went back upstairs and an hour later … I haven’t heard a word.  He has clearly gone to sleep.

And equally clear is the fact that he was so very upset about having to use a downstairs Kleenex instead of an upstairs Kleenex.

Toddler logic.  Go figure.

This past weekend has been interesting in terms of seeing Aidan interact with technology.  First, while chatting with Grandma, she was getting him to move the mouse to various places on her face (her nose, her head, etc).  Now, I had never seen Aidan try to do this before — and he was doing it with very little problem.  Adding to the level of difficulty is that he was using a trackball !

The next day I was sitting on the sofa with my Eee and he crawled up on my lap.  On a whim, I tried to find some Flash game for him to play (since that’s where kids games seem to have gone) and found the incredible companion site to one of Aidan’s favourite shows (and ours):  Peep and the Big Wide World.  That site has a number of different games, some of which were easy for Aidan, some of which were harder.  His favourite game was one where you made Quack jump on one of three tubes of paint (each of a different colour) to squirt paint onto a fence.  The goal was to combine the primary colours to match the colour on the card that Chirp was holding up.  Aidan’s favourite part of the game was making Quack jump on a nearby hose, which causes water to go everywhere, cleaning up the fence and soaking Chirp in the process.  And, as any fan of the show knows, Chirp hates water.

That time, Aidan was using the touchpad on the little Eee.

*I* can’t use the trackpad reliably well.  Although I suspect it has something to do with the size of the pad compared to the size of my hands. :)

After a blog post from Kerry, I started in earnest looking for a real video game appropriate for Aidan.  I was originally thinking about the DS, what with it supposedly being a kid’s game system.  But then I was picking through the racks at the Superstore and saw some Wii games that might be appropriate too.  After picking some up … and putting them back, I headed home to do some research.

Video games for the pre-school crowd are just not *there*, you know?

But consistently one stood out, and on Monday Aidan and I wandered up to Toys R Us and purchased “Diego Safari Rescue” for the Wii.

I’ll write a real review of this soon, but suffice it to say that it’s gone over quite well.  And … Aidan’s conquered this control system too.

I continue to be astonished at what a different life Aidan is having (and will have) compared to what Gwen & I have had.

It’s funny, they creep up on you.

Today we bought Aidan his first bike. Well, technically we were proxies for Grandma and Grandpa who wanted to buy Aidan a tricycle for his birthday. Unfortunately, our living arrangements don’t really allow us to have a trike — no where to store it, and really no where to ride it except on the side walk. But we live on a hill — 22% grade according to the signs — and trikes don’t have brakes. And frankly, Aidan’s a bit of a small guy and last year he wasn’t really big enough for a trike. This year, though, he seems to fit the 12″ bikes quite well. And, we found a bike with a parental handle on the back — which seems to be ideal! The one shown to the right is the bike, but the one that we bought doesn’t have the Tigger head on it, or the tassles. Instead it has a black handlebar bag with a Tigger on it. And instead of spokes, it has solid discs in the rims. We must have the ’08 model.

We also bought him a helmet (skateboard style) that came with elbow and knee pads. The kicker is — they’re sized for ages 5+ and Aidan’s head size is at the top end of the head sizes that the helmet will fit (21″ vs 21 1/4″ max size). 5+ years old? Do these kids have freakishly small heads? After I got the proper size pads in the helmet, he stopped complaining that it hurt when it was on. :) He seemed to like the elbow and knee pads, and wore them over his pyjamas for a good portion of the night. Actually, he seemed to like the idea that they were to keep him safe if he fell (or in toddler terms, ‘crashed’). I know this because he proceeded to throw himself at the floor, repeatedly. At least his elbows and knees were safe. I did worry a bit about his wrists, though.

At any rate, we’ll get some pictures once we have a sunny day.

Of course, it’s supposed to be a birthday present so unless he specifically asks for it we might keep it from him for the next few weeks.

The other milestone that we’re dealing with today is moving Aidan from the crib to a toddler bed. Well, that’s not strictly true — his crib converted into a toddler bed. And, he’s been down since 7:30ish. There were tears, with him saying that he wasn’t ready for his crib … and I’m not sure if he meant that he wasn’t ready for the toddler bed, or if was just generally not ready to go to bed. Gwen stayed down and calmed him down. I’ve been down twice in the half hour that followed to calm down more tears. But in the past half hour (it’s 8:45 now) I haven’t heard anything from him. And, not once did he get up out of the toddler bed. Let’s see if that holds all night long.

And we’ll deal with tomorrow night tomorrow.

Aidan’s crib broke the other day.

Wednesday last in fact. Gwen leaned into it to push the rail edge beyond the catches, and “Snap!” the top rail of the drop side broke. It hasn’t completely broken, but it has cracked through. The teething rail is helping keep it together.

Our temporary solution has been to put that side of the crib against the wall and deal with retrieving him without lowering the rail. Not a big deal given his size and mobility.

But what to do with the crib? It’s not exactly dangerous as is, but not 100% safe either. Gwen called Storkcraft (a local company would you believe) and, surprise, surprise, our crib model (“Ashley”) is discontinued and they don’t have any replacement bits. $280 dollar crib, 3 years old, and broken. It’s not like we abuse the crib, and I’ve never seen him stand up and rattle the rail either, so it’s particularly disappointing.

So, do we do a home-fix, convert it into a toddler bed, or get a new one? Well, I think getting a new one is out of the question right now — seems pointless. Fixing it is do-able: I think that effectively putting a splint on the rail will keep it together pretty well. Metal straps will work, but I think I could patch it up pretty well with fibreglass; unfortunately Gwen’s put the kibosh on that.

And then there’s the option of transforming the crib into a toddler bed. I’m leaning towards this, but the fact is that I don’t think Aidan’s ready for it. He likes his crib. He doesn’t try to get out of it. He happily plays in it for hours. We’ve asked him if he wants to sleep in a big boy bed, and Gwen’s gone to Ikea to get him to test drive some of the beds there, and the reaction ranges from tepid to outright rejection.

So, what to do?